Brick Leaf House

Both houses begin with a top-lit, double-height entrance and are at the centre of the terrace, the ground slopes up toward the entrance of the east house, making this the shallowest space on its ground floor; room floors then step down the hill.

For the west house the slope continues on up past the entrance, and so the entrance is the tallest space, the room floors stepping up.

Internal surfaces are plain plaster with flash gap detailing, white downstairs, with Pietra Serena stone floors. The upstairs is relatively narrow with enclosed staircases kept bright by the skylighting. These two houses have a narrow internal connecting passage between the entrances, off which is the stair down to the 15 x 4m basement pool.

Low-ceilinged towards the pool edge, the concrete-walled volume is sky-lit at either end. The pool was cast within 9m sheet piling, creating an anchor for the house’s ground slab with trench footings, avoiding piling for the steel-framed structure, the ability to create long spans, to refine the layout at a late stage and to make changes in future years. While perimeter walls are of cavity brickwork, internal partitions are, flexibly, of steel stud and plasterboard.